


fingers tapping in the 5am light.

by Ash_Cassidy97



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Autistic Spencer Reid, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I feel like those tags were originally explicit but that's not the intent here, Past Rape/Non-con, Protective Aaron Hotchner, how they interact with each other should've been the show, largely fluffy, not explicitly but all Spencer are rustic Spencers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 01:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Cassidy97/pseuds/Ash_Cassidy97
Summary: They all do their best at ignoring inter team profiling. They get good at it, or they wash out. Hotch does his best to not notice when Reid’s fingers won’t fucking stop tapping against his leg or when he adds four extra spoons of sugar to his coffee. Hotch gets good at letting Morgan talk to Reid, or at least he tries to. Hotch gets good at bumping Reid’s coffee away from him, utilizing the same bravery most attribute to disarming IEDs.Sometimes though, Reid lies so obviously they can’t let it go.





	fingers tapping in the 5am light.

They all do their best at ignoring inter team profiling. They get good at it, or they wash out. Hotch does his best to not notice when Reid’s fingers won’t fucking stop tapping against his leg or when he adds four extra spoons of sugar to his coffee. Hotch gets good at letting Morgan talk to Reid, or at least he tries to. Hotch gets good at bumping Reid’s coffee away from him, utilizing the same bravery most attribute to disarming IEDs.

Sometimes though, Reid lies so obviously they can’t let it go. “What was the movie about?”

“I uh I left early so I didn’t really-” Reid trails off, because he has the sudden realization that he’s talking to profilors, to his family, and he cuts off his lies before they can fry him more. It’s not unkind, their sass, they just want him to know that he doesn’t have to lie. And because profilors are instinctively asshats, they’re a little bit less polite about it.

Reid had handed Emily his gun, and walked out there like he was unarmed, like he hadn’t learned to kill with words when he was eighteen and signed his family away. And he let Hotch ream him out for it, knowing that he wouldn’t change a damn thing.

“What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that would have been the second time a kid died in front of me.”

“I think you should go and catch the rest of that movie.”

Reid nods. He knows they know. They think he’s handled it well (Garcia quietly curses profilors under her breath while she forces sugar cookies into Reid’s hands). He’d been small before the drugs, now she had half a mind to force Morgan to drag the kid to a hospital. And they try not to see too much, they’re so busy not trying to look that they didn’t see the warning signs. For months after, they watch Reid like a hawk, ready to swoop down and offer unconditional support at the slightest sign.

They try to not, because Reid likes to get introduced as Dr. Spencer Reid, who never asks anybody for a ride to work, takes the metro, would rather develop a hearty drug problem rather than cry out for help. So they try to not treat him like the token kid genius.

Reid’s good at his job, too good sometimes, too good at letting victims, criminals get under his skin so Reid can catch the bad guy. And Hotch, and the rest, knows that better than most. Severe emotional abuse. So Reid keeps a steady eye on Morgan, knows when he goes to church more than once a day, when his hands shake for the need to pray.

“It gets better,” Reid tells him, focused on his book, but not flipping a page every fifteen seconds like normal.

“Huh?” Morgan asks, looking up from his notes. He turns off his music. The rest of the team is passed out. It’d been a rough case involving hurt children which pissed them all off.

“It gets easier, recovering from abuse.”

“Reid, unless you’re speaking from ex-”

“I am.” Reid doesn’t look up from his book. He hastily remembers that he should be turning pages.

“You want to talk about it, kid?” And Morgan would let him. Derek would let him, would hold himself still, try to make all that anger, he likes to pretend doesn’t exist, wedge deeper down inside. It took Reid months to get used to Morgan joking around, taken him years to not flinch away if Morgan moved a little too quick.

“I need you know it gets better.”

“Okay, Reid.” He doesn’t want to tell Morgan the other part to the football story. He doesn’t want to tell Morgan how he got free from the football poll, who drove him home that night, who-

“Reid, what are you doing here? It’s six am.” It is. It’s 06:03:02. Reid’s brain rarely likes to do what he wants.

“I could-I couldn't sleep.” Actually most people are up at this time of the morning. Morgan certainly was, but Reid tries his best to ignore all that. He mostly succeeds at not knowing that Morgan has taken four showers, walked Clooney around the block eighteen times, that Morgan has a gun on him, and-

“Okay, okay.” Clooney sniffs at Reid, paws at his leg. Morgan puts the kettle on, more to give Reid a minute to collect his thoughts than anything else. Clooney has eventually gotten over the Reid Effect, which all of them are grateful for.

“Thanks,” Reid asks, blowing on the tea. They sit across from each other. Morgan, praying for patience and understanding, waits out Reid. “The man who cut me down from that poll was my spanish professor.” He smiles a little bit, jerkily. Morgan doesn’t say anything. “He uh . . .he touched me.” Reid learned Russian. They all know that, will watch him and Emily devolve into terrible accents and-they try not to think about why. “He cuts me down. It’s after dark. And I’m so grateful because my dad just left.” Another long pause. Morgan doesn’t reach across the table to try to offer physical comfort. They already have this thin thread between them, barely tying them together. Reid just keeps blinking away, making eye contact only to break away. “I don’t tell anybody. My mother had gotten bad, and I could . . .I couldn't risk people knowing, you know?”

He said all of this in a flat, dry tone, licking his lips. He can’t look in Morgan’s direction, let alone the other man’s face. He keeps looking up only to duck his head down. Morgan sees all this, hears all this. He tries to not force that this is his friend, Spencer in his head. Mostly he fails.

And Morgan tries to come up with words for that. He doesn’t have any. There shouldn’t be anymore words for that. God, he hopes they never have words for that.

Instead he nods. “Do you want eggs?”

“I-that would be good actually. Thank you.” And they both know that’s not why Reid’s thanking him. Sometimes, if it’s a good day, it’s enough to hear these secrets. “He got, he got fired after that, slipped up and p-took the wrong kid.”

“Carl, he’d act like it was a treat, and my dad was gone-dead, and school, and I believed him,” Morgan offers with his back to Reid. It’s enough.

Secrets never get shared in blinding sunlight. They get shared at 5am, when the dark presses in like a blanket.

And Spencer never grows out of the delusion that he can save everybody. He never fully stops visiting Amanda, and Derek never stops opening his door up at ass o’clock in the morning.

“I wanted kids,” is what Emily says to her tombstone. She wanted kids, and a nice man, and we don’t get what we want. She steps trepidatiously through Europe with a burner in her pocket. It has Hotch’s number on it.

She calls it at night sometimes, ignoring the time difference. He always answers. He tells her about Reid’s latest prank or Garcia’s best quipp or Emily’s cat’s antics. He does his best to fill the gap between them. The silence still eats at her, at all the things she can’t tell him.

Reid calls JJ “Jenifer” for a month. Hotch tries to head it off, and Reid blows him off. He started sleeping at Morgan’s again. On the bad nights, the ones he couldn't stop running, he ran to Hotch’s, quite literally sometimes.

“It’s a good thing we all live close together,” Hotch remarks. He looks over Reid, sweaty from running, shaking slightly. “Emily’s in the guestroom.”

“I can take the couch,” Reid attempts to offer, but Hotch is already shaking his head. “I can leave,” Reid attempts. Hotch briskly swipes Reid by the shoulder, gently, and pulls him towards the master.

“You can share with me for a night, Reid.” Reid’s never gotten very used to being close to men. And Hotch, eyeing the kid, knows damn well to not let him be alone tonight.

“I-” Hotch raises his eyebrows, and somehow Reid finds himself in a bed with his boss, both of them dressed in sweatpants and t-shirts.

“You want to talk about it?” Hotch asks him. They’re lying with the perfectly fine four inches between them, and it feels like Hotch is using a Batman device to attempt to cross the distance.

“I wake up, and Emily’s dead, and you’re dead.”

“So you go run?”

“Because I need to be faster.” Reid, against all odds, goes and shoots at the gun range. He joined one after the hospital shooter. He never failed another gun test since. It was always the fear that jerked his fingers away, the need to not be another goon with a gun, the one who couldn't use his words like bullets dripping off his tongue.

He wasn’t Gideon.

It took him years to know that was more than fine. It was desired.

There is something very leveling that for all their words and training, they never manage to say the right things at the right times, or they never have to say anything at all.

JJ’s sister went missing. Most siblings wouldn’t have gone to college on a soccer scholarship, gotten perfect grades, joined the FBI, and spend the next years trying to trace who to save. JJ did. And she’s the carefullest with the local law enforcement, the gentlest when breaking the news to families.

It’s a learned skill.

Once, she sent a woman to a hospital over bad news. Once, she turned down Will. Once, she lied to her family. Once, once, once. She gets it right more often than naught, and that’s the best she can reasonably expect. She fights for them, possibly more than Hotch, more than Reid, more than anybody they know. She sits with stacks and stacks of cases in her office, and tries to save them all.

And she’s good at it.

Emily and her tear at each other in odd ways over the years. If Emily hadn’t carefully, and unsubtly, plotted to flirt with Will, JJ might still be single. JJ’s one of the few who’ve ever told Emily she’d be good with kids. They work in a male dominated field with serial killers and perverts and panicking parents. And they are good at it.

“Some grow up to catch them.”

Every night, Aaron hopes to be better than the day before, to make damn sure Jack never has the same upbringing. Everyday is a new day. And some days he lies because he doesn’t know an answer about his own son.

“Why are you digging up information about school teachers in Vegas?” Hotch asks, because it’s his job. Morgan doesn’t blink. Reid’ll keep visiting Amanda. Morgan will keep digging at the darkness.

“Reid. Garcia tell you?” Hotch nods. Morgan sighs heavily. It’s late. They’re the only ones left at the cop shop. The others had gone back to try to sleep. “You going to tell me to stop?”

Hotch shakes his head. “Tell me if you find anything.”

Morgan goes to leave the restaurant, Hotch behind him. They’d thrown Reid and Rossi together for this case, forcing them to get a little bit better at communication. Rossi still liked to try and act like he wasn’t a parental figure to them all. Hotch and the rest got no small amount of joy from watching him slip up.

Hotch worked with Morgan for years, long, hard, years before Morgan showed the slightest hint of trust. But that’s Morgan. That’s how they all are. Morgan didn’t kill Buford. And Hotch, for all his profiling skills, all his training, never would’ve seen that’s how Morgan showed his trust in them. His life got ripped apart, paraded in front of everybody he knows, family, friends, enemies, and Morgan could’ve buried it permanently. Morgan didn’t. He also didn’t quit the next day, didn’t run, and Hotch admires him for that more than he can say. Although, Hotch knows at the very least that Morgan wouldn’t have run. It doesn’t feel very comforting, but Hotch takes what he can get.

Hell, even after Kate, even after all of that mess, Morgan still doesn’t trust him. It’s why Hotch handed Reid to Morgan, handed them to each other really. Everything about Hotch, everything on the surface scares the shit out of Morgan, they both know this. Hotch is a dominant man that people instinctively trusts, that Morgan instinctively wants to trust.

Hotch does his best to ignore that, to not manipulate Morgan. He’s a little bit surprised that Morgan didn’t kill him for Emily . . . and a little bit disappointed. He might’ve deserved it for that one.

Hotch gets good at pushing Morgan the right amount, getting them to where they need to be. He bumps Morgan up to leader.

“He’s doing good,” is all Rossi notes. Hotch agrees. They’d done well with Morgan. Morgan had done well with Morgan. And somehow Morgan manages to step back down, and that might be the best show of trust Hotch will ever get out of him.

They’d all gotten used to walking on Hotch’s right side, his worse side. Reid half signs most of his sentences anyway, needing something to do to get his brain to slow down a little bit. And Garcia had written programs to force subtitles into video feeds. They’d all gotten used to each other having issues, having touchy things. They’re mostly good at ignoring their knowledge. Mostly. Hotch never talks about his hearing loss. He doesn’t need to.

And Reid’s a lot better with emotions than anybody gives him credit for.

Reid finds him on the balcony of the motel; he’s staring at a picture of Jack. Reid hesitates for a moment. He approaches Hotch cautiously. It’d been a rough case. All the cases are rough. If they were cut and dry, nobody would call the BAU.

“You talk to Morgan?” Hotch asks him, not looking up from the photo. Reid leans over the railing, looking down at the pavement. Hotch spares a three second thought that Reid probably wouldn’t kill himself by jumping over the railing, not like those four kids.

“Yeah. He’ll probably find you later.”

“I know.” Hotch sighs. He half wishes he was a smoker. Maybe this would be easier if he could smoke, and cool down for a minute. He dismisses it quickly. He’d never smoke, not around Jack. Ever. He still gives it half a thought because while he likes Morgan, dealing with his issues and Morgan’s, at the same time, is never a good idea. It’s never a promising experience. Usually they walk away needing beer, and feeling like they’d been interrogating Bin Laden.

Reid swipes his phone to see the photo of Jack. Hotch doesn’t fight him on it. “You’re not your father,” Reid tells him.

“I know.”

Reid blinks at him. “I’ve never doubted you.”

“Yes, you have.” Of course Reid’s doubted him. After Emily, Reid would’ve had to go back through all the years and tracked whether Hotch has ever lied to him before. And hell, that’s not even counting Hankle.

“Yeah, but I’ve never doubted you long, and I’ve never left.”

“Would you? If you didn’t trust me?” Hotch doesn’t know the answer.

“Yes.”

“You’re not Morgan.”

“No, I’m not. And you’re not your father. Jack loves you, and is happy.” Hotch shrugs his shoulder. “No, he is. He’s a confident, happy kid. You being here is not a reflection on your relationship him, apart that you want to be somebody he’s proud of.”

“I am proud of him.” 

“He knows.” Hotch nods.

“You going to be okay?”

“I’m okay,” Reid says. Hotch doesn’t believe him. Reid’d kill himself quietly, probably starve himself to death if how he eats is anything to go on. Morgan slips out of his motel door. He looks a lot smaller than he should.

“Okay,” Hotch says at last, doing his best to let it go. Reid blinks at him. Morgan presses up against Reid, carefully.

“I was raped by a highschool teacher.” His entire face is twitching. For being a Vegas native, Reid has the worst poker face around them. They knew about Riley at this point. Sometimes, Hotch wants to invent a time machine, find drugs for Reid’s mother and try to give Reid a good childhood. They don’t get what they want.

“I’m sorry,” is all he says, and they both know he means more than what is typically an empty statement. Hotch also makes a mental note to ask Morgan how that search is going.

“It was years ago.” To say nothing of him never saying anything for years. “Morgan knows. It’s uh . . .it’s why I’d-doesn’t matter.”

Hotch waits patiently for Reid to look up at him. “Spencer, you can always talk to me.”

“I know, I know.” Reid gets a more intent look about him. “And you know you can always talk to me, right?” Hotch has the distinct feeling that Reid’s manipulated him somehow.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“I think I’m going to go get a drink.” Hotch smiles, and lets him go. Hotch is fully aware that Reid’s going to go sleep in Emily’s room. Hell, most of the rest of his team are already there. Emily had been putting up with the overprotective agents with the kind of bewilderment that tells them she never realized how her death would impact her family.

“Hey, Hotch,” Morgan says.

Hotch lets him talk. He doesn’t say anything of great importance. They talk about the weather of all things. Eventually Morgan goes back into his hotel room, and sleeps. Hotch doesn’t. He’ll sleep when they’re out of this hellhole. He’ll sleep on the plane where there aren’t fathers raping their kids and driving middle schoolers to jump off buildings. He’ll sleep then. In the meantime, he can very rationally sit in front of the doors, gun in his lap.

In an odd way, Garcia is the best at this job. They all know that. She takes sparkly things with her when she has to move from the BAU. She takes sparkly things, and forces herself to watch the screens. And then she goes home, and coaches families through grief, through heartbreak. She voluntarily sees people every week who are going through the worst possible thing they could, and she helps them. And she gets good at reading her team, it’s a survival skill here. They all relax when they hear her voice. It’s survival to call her, to flirt over the phone.

It’s survival to pour Reid coffee at 4am in the morning, and if you’re Morgan or Hotch, to bump it away from the kid. Rossi’s typically the one to make the coffee in the first place, well used to coping mechanisms, and if he makes it, he can make it half decaf. It’s survival to let Emily geek out over Russian literature, to make damn well sure that Hotch calls his kid every day. It’s survival to know all this.

But they don’t share it.

And they work damn hard to not lie to each other, or at least not lie well.

“Are you sure?” Rossi asked Reid way back in the day, because if anybody knows evil it’s Rossi, and the pursuit of knowledge. And Spencer has never not gone down the rabbit hole. Infinite curiosity meets the dark human soul. And they’re all like that.

And rarely do they lose that control. They get good at dealing with hostile situations in towns they don’t know with people they can’t trust, who don’t trust them. And they get good or they get lost. They get good at leaning on each other.

“Charlie Chaplin at my house later,” Rossi tells them all. They’re barely off the plane, and still wide awake. And Rossi knows how that goes better than most. Over thirty years on this job, and he knows how it goes like the back of his hand. So he eliminates the stressors that would cause his family to lose sleep. There’s a reason why they never think twice about days when Spencer can’t look anybody in the eye, or when Hotch doesn’t know how to get angry anymore.

“Let me invite Will, but I’m in,” JJ says. Garcia’s already stealing Morgan’s keys, and successfully bumping him towards his own vehicle with an experienced air.

“Charlie Chaplin suffered from depression, and-”

“Easy, Reid,” Hotch says, not really interrupting but trying to redirect him. Hotch, having slept on the plane, guides Reid into the passenger seat. Rossi takes the back. Reid keeps mumbling facts, falling asleep. He’s dead under by the time they pull up in front of Rossi’s. Rossi hadn’t dared drive on two hours of sleep.

Hotch wakes Reid, and they all swarm through Rossi’s house. Garcia started making a batch of sugar cookies, like a normal person, none of those weird peanut butter and apple fritters that Emily makes. Though, those are good. Weirdly good. Rossi throws pasta together with JJ’s help. Will’s on the way. Everyday JJ is grateful that she married a cop, and not some 9 to 5er that wouldn’t understand why she does her job, why she ends up at her boss’s house and not home.

Emily had run home to feed Sergio, but she made it back in time to catch Morgan balancing popcorn on Reid’s sleeping face, trying to hit the highest number. Hotch is drinking beer. She almost blinks. Hotch rarely drinks. Jack was there. Jackie had run him over for a sleep over at Uncle Dave’s. The kid’s sacked out, laying against Uncle Spencer.

Eventually they’re all asleep in various places over Rossi’s house. Morgan and Spencer double up, along with Garcia. Rossi had made a kids room after the first couple of times that kids had stayed over (definitely not an uncle, nope). Emily ends up in Hotch’s bed, after letting him spout nonsense at her for two minutes, until Rossi eventually tells him to shut up and move over. 

They all get good at the weird, or they wash out. And the ones who stay, they thrive at those survival skills.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this like two years ago, forgot to post it.


End file.
